Keyglance

A minimal, always-on-top keyboard overlay that highlights your key presses in real time.
Built for touch typists learning a new layout — see which finger should press which key at a glance.

Features • Screenshots • Layouts • Installation • Development • Contributing • License

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Screenshots

  

Features

• Real-time key highlighting — keys light up as you type, showing exactly what you pressed
• Finger color coding — each finger is assigned a distinct color so you can quickly see which finger should hit which key
• Split keyboard view — matrix (ortholinear) layout with left/right hand split and configurable thumb keys
• Standard (flat) view — traditional staggered keyboard layout option
• Compact & normal sizing — toggle between a compact overlay and a larger, more readable view
• Number row — optionally show/hide the number row
• Configurable thumb keys — assign any modifier or key (⌫ ⌘ ⏎ ␣ ⇥ ⎋ ⌦ ⌥ ⌃ ⇧) to thumb positions via a settings panel
• Always-on-top transparent overlay — floats above all windows with a frosted-glass aesthetic
• Auto-follow focused input — optionally repositions itself above the text field you're typing in
• Idle fade — the overlay fades out after 2 seconds of inactivity for a distraction-free experience
• System tray integration — switch layouts, toggle matrix mode, number row, and more from the tray menu
• Launch at login — optional autostart support
• Hide dock icon — run as a menu-bar-only app on macOS
• Draggable window — grab and reposition the overlay anywhere on screen
• Shift layer support — displays shifted characters when Shift is held
• Lightweight & native — built with Tauri 2 (Rust + WebView), minimal resource usage

Supported Keyboard Layouts

Layout	Description
QWERTY	The standard layout used by most keyboards
AZERTY	French keyboard layout
QWERTZ	German/Central European keyboard layout
Dvorak	Simplified Dvorak layout optimised for English
Colemak	Modern alternative layout with minimal key changes
Colemak-DH	Colemak mod with improved home-row finger rolls

Installation

Pre-built binaries

Download the latest release from the Releases page.

macOS — "App is damaged" warning Because the app is not code-signed with an Apple Developer certificate, macOS Gatekeeper may block it. After installing, run:

xattr -cr /Applications/keyglance.app

Then open the app again normally.

Build from source

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• Rust (stable)
• Tauri CLI

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/brambeirens/keyglance.git
cd keyglance

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run tauri dev

# Build for production
npm run tauri build

Note: On macOS, Keyglance requires the Accessibility permission to listen for global key events. You will be prompted to grant this on first launch.

Development

# Start the Vite dev server + Tauri window
npm run tauri dev

Project Structure

keyglance/
├── src/                  # React frontend
│   ├── App.tsx           # Main overlay UI
│   ├── Settings.tsx      # Thumb key settings panel
│   ├── layouts.ts        # Keyboard layout definitions
│   ├── thumbKeys.ts      # Thumb key options & config
│   └── components/
│       └── Keyboard.tsx  # Keyboard renderer
├── src-tauri/            # Rust backend (Tauri)
│   └── src/
│       └── main.rs       # Tray menu, global key listener, window management
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── vite.config.ts

Tech Stack

• Tauri 2 — native desktop shell (Rust)
• React 19 — UI framework
• TypeScript — type safety
• Tailwind CSS 4 — styling
• Vite 7 — frontend bundling
• Framer Motion — animations

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Whether it's a bug fix, new keyboard layout, feature request, or documentation improvement — feel free to open a PR.

How to submit a Pull Request

1. Fork the repository
2. Clone your fork locally

   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/keyglance.git
   cd keyglance

3. Create a branch for your change

   git checkout -b feat/my-new-feature

4. Make your changes and test them locally with npm run tauri dev
5. Commit with a clear, descriptive message

   git commit -m "feat: add Workman keyboard layout"

6. Push to your fork

   git push origin feat/my-new-feature

7. Open a Pull Request against the main branch of this repository
   • Provide a clear description of what you changed and why
   • Include screenshots if your change affects the UI
   • Reference any related issues (e.g. Closes #42)

Guidelines

• Keep changes focused — one feature or fix per PR
• Follow the existing code style
• Test your changes on macOS before submitting
• Add new keyboard layouts to src/layouts.ts and register the LayoutId type

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see the LICENSE file for details.

Copyright (C) 2026 Bram Beirens

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.